SC chair: interim results of MH17 crash probe to be ready at end of August

UNITED NATIONS, August 18 /ITAR-TASS/. Preliminary results of the MH17 crash investigation in Ukraine will be announced before the end of August, U.N. Security Council President Mark Lyall Grant of Great Britain said on Monday.

On Russia’s initiative, the Security Council heard Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Oscar Fernandez-Taranco’s report which advised its members that the interim report would be ready approximately by the end of August.

He said the report was not intended for governments and would be made public immediately.

Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said earlier in the day that he would ask the U.N. Secretariat to brief the Security Council on the progress in the investigation of the MH17 crash in Ukraine.

“We will request that the Secretariat hold a briefing on progress in the implementation of [U.N. Security Council] Resolution 2166 [which requires an independent investigation into the cause of the accident]. A month has passed since the Malaysian liner was destroyed. Paragraph 13 of the resolution requires the secretary-general to provide the Security Council with investigation progress reports. We hope that this will happen already today,” the diplomat said, responding to a question from ITAR-TASS.

The plane en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region 60 km from the Russian border on July 17 and all of the 298 people aboard died.

On July 22, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 2166 by all 15 members of the Security Council, including Russia.

The Security Council called for an immediate end to all armed hostilities in the crash area and urged the militiamen in eastern Ukraine to secure the crash site and give the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission access to it.

It also called for bringing to justice all persons responsible for the accident.

The resolution condemns in the strongest possible terms the actions that had caused the plane to be shot down and called for a through and independent investigation of the accident in accordance the international civil aviation guidelines.